Kelly Minkin Bags Big on Day 1b of WSOP Circuit Thunder Valley Main Event
The second of two opening flights is complete in the World Series of Poker Circuit Thunder Valley $1,700 Main Event. Day 1b drew 273 total entrants, with 68 surviving to come back for Day 2. Those 68 players will join the 31 survivors of the Day 1a flight, and the combined field of 99 will return for a noon restart on Sunday.
Plenty of big names came through the Thunder Valley Poker Room in Lincoln, California, to take a shot at advancing in the tournament. At the end of the night, it was Roman Shainiuk bagging the biggest stack with 421,500 chips.
Closely following on the chip leaderboard are Paul Chai (408,000), Kelly Minkin (293,000), Ian Chan (280,500), and Dinh Le (278,000).
Top 10 Day 1b Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Roman Shainiuk | 421,500 |
| 2 | Paul Chai | 408,000 |
| 3 | Kelly Minkin | 293,000 |
| 4 | Ian Chan | 280,000 |
| 5 | Dinh Le | 278,000 |
| 6 | Jeff Dewitt | 214,000 |
| 7 | Anthony Hugenberg | 207,500 |
| 8 | Phillip Harvey | 205,500 |
| 9 | Terence Reardon | 205,000 |
| 10 | Brett Murray | 200,500 |
Notable players also bagging Day 1b included Brett Murray (200,500), Jimmy Zeledon (118,000), Pat Lyons (56,000), David Brookshire (50,500) and Rickey Evans (116,000).
The Thunder Valley Poker Room was filled with some of poker’s best tournament players Saturday, and some of the notable players who failed to make it through to Day 2 included Ian Steinman, Craig Varnell, Jarod Minghini, JC Tran, Joe Elpayaa, Josh Prager, Scott Sanders and Kenny Tran.
The 273 Day 1b entrants brought the total number of entries for the Main Event to 414. The total prize pool is $627,210, with $130,667 going to the eventual winner. The tournament will pay 63 places, and with 99 totals players coming back for Day 2, the money bubble should burst fairly quickly on Sunday.
Play will resume at Level 16, with the blinds at 2000/4000 and a 4,000 big blind ante. The tournament is scheduled to play down to the final nine Sunday, with those nine coming back for the final table Monday.
PokerNews live updates from the WSOP Circuit Thunder Valley continues with the $1,700 Main Event, which you can follow here.
